FOREST BED ELKS AND GIANT DEER REVISITED

Cervids of the Forest Bed Formation were studied by the present author in a paper now 40 years old. Some identifications and generic attributions are here revised. The fossils fall into one, or possibly two, distinct levels of the late Villefranchian (Early Pleistocene) and in the earlier Middle Pleistocene (Galerian, =Cromerian). In the earlier paper four elk species were recognized; these are now reduced to two: Cervalces gallicus, from the younger Late Villefranchian, and Cervalces latifrons, from the Galerian. A skull From Mundesley is proposed as the neotype of the latter, to replace a poorly diagnostic original holotype. These species are nor closely related to the living Alces alces but are forerunners of the North American Cervalces scotti The phylogeny of Pleistocene elks is discussed in this context. Giant deer are represented by two genera, with three species: Megaceroides verticornis, Megaceroides dawkinsi and Megaloceros savini. Some fossils misinterpreted in the former paper are revised. Megaceroides dawkinsi seems to be endemic to Great Britain, raising an intriguing problem of palaeogeography.